The article describes a variant on the usual public services blackmail, in that the police administrators are holding junior, beat officers hostage to protect bloated, unsustainable pensions and benefits for desk drivers.PDB predicts anarchy in the East Bay. Well, more anarchy than usual.
"...protect bloated unsustainable pensions..." aye - for LOTS of folks; legislators, school district administrators et al.
ReplyDeleteToo bad there's not a "line-item veto" for payroll and pension expenditures; imagine if we could give raises to the street cops and good classroom teachers at the expense of the desk-warmin pogues!
A law is like a security camera: just because it's there doesn't mean it's doing anything useful. I'm not comfortable calling it "extortion". It's more like the people getting exactly what they demanded out of government: more rules than can possibly be enforced, with less than the minimum man power to do the job. (Don't ask about the appropriate level of manpower--you can't afford it.)
ReplyDeleteRemember folks, it not about the minimum government to protect the rights of people--and optimal, peaceful cooperation within the Union--it's about a person's own selfish demands, and gaining the favor of a massive, corrupt kakistocracy so you can fuck over your fellow citizen--regardless of whether or not anything he has any effect on your life from 2,000 miles away. Well, Dr. Franklin, what have we got? A republic, if you're really loose with words.
Pensions: created as an apology for crippling income taxes, and based on the assumption that the entity which is paying now will exist in the future. Just like gambling, except you have no choice, and when you lose you starve in the dark.
Next up: GSEs introduce the inter-glacial term mortgage, to continue the illusion that real property is "affordable", and not inflated by purposeful market distortions for the purposes of collecting large sums of property tax.
So how's that Stimulus money working for you, Oakland? What, doesn't go to cops you say? Well, we'll see what happens when one of Pelosi's cronies gets mugged out there. Money'll flow then, I betcha!.
ReplyDeleteWell, cheap money policies coming home to roost...
ReplyDeleteYou can't have both guns and butter, you know. Germans learned that the hard way in WWII. They hadn't switch to wartime economy until 1943, or so..
Parts of Oakland are barely "civil" now, after the layoffs - welcome to the jungle!
ReplyDeleteI was born in Oakland (over 40 years ago), my grandparents lived there for many - many years. I've seen it change from a place you could enjoy a nice day uneventfully with a family, to a place with neighborhoods named "the murders" and the like.
The police are overworked to the point that they will not even pretend to investigate gang on gang violence now, what's next indeed. . .
Charming. My future d-i-l is a public defender there. She says business is already pretty good.
ReplyDeleteAt this point what Oakland needs most is probably not police officers. It's bulldozers - to level it and start again. Sadly, at times it seems to apply to most of Commiefornia.
ReplyDeleteAußenseiter,
ReplyDeletePlease. The US hasn't been trying to do even the APPEARANCE of "Guns and butter" since Ronald Reagan left office. A lot of money has been spent on the war, but incomparison to the socialist programs and ESPECIALLY when considered against previous wartime budgets, this war is being fought on the cheap.
Right now, the socialists are STILL underfunding the military -- but they are not letting the costs of war slow their stampede to cash rubber checks. If Bush was spending like a drunken sailor while the Republicans had control of Congress (trying to fight the war, while trying to buy support, or at least, non-aggression, from teh DNC by signing off on their social program), then Obama (with a two year head start by Pelosi/Reid) have been spending money like a whole FLEET of drunken sailors.
As for the wonders of the Nazi economy. . . under the economic policies of fascism (you know, the economic policies that most closely map to the Democratic party in the US since the 1960s? that variant of socialism where private ownership is allowed, but public control in maintained?), they already HAD shifted to a higher level of "war economy" by 1939 than the US is on today.
Which is still very irrelevant -- the German economy SUCKED at the beginning of the war, and they started faking a "war economy" increase by loot (one way to get "guns and butter" is to steal both guns and butter from your neighbors, while continuing to buy your own at the same rate as before).
Of course, looking at econmies as "Guns or Butter" ONLY works for centrally organized economies. So, if you are in a free market society (as opposed to the various flavors of communism, socialism, or fascism), this trite saying isn't really appropriate.
The current economic situation is caused in GREAT part to government intervention in a market where they forced businesses to make poor business decisions since long before Bush took office or 9/11 took place. You can thank teh Democrats for that -- and for refusing to even admit there was a problem when Bush and the RNC spent YEARS trying to get them to tighten the reins on the fascist vote buying mortgage policies of the Democrats.
I'm really uncertain what your point is, other than you think the 21st Century US ought to run its economy more like Nazi Germany did in the middle of losing a war due to economic pressures. . . (I have to state "Nazi" Germany to differenciate, since Germany hasn't won a war since 1870.)
Well, technically, "Germany" hasn't EVER won a war. . . some Gemran states and collections of German states won wars, but since the Second Reich was declared in 1871. . . no victories.
ReplyDeleteWhich is why ac ommon saying amongst US Army officers is, "Why emulate an army that lost two World Wars in a row?"